Academy Blues
by Sayuri686
Summary: A news student has arrived at Youkai academy. The strange stories of the Academy's history seem to be gearing up to repeat themselves...but how can they become as bad as they once were yet again?


_**Academy Blues**_

My wheel was stuck. Again. Sighing heavily, I awkwardly tugged at the handlebars of my bike, straining against the thick, heavy piles of mud. Rain fell from the sky, an unusual occurrence here at the Academy. At least, that's what I'd heard. My grandfather had sent me off to the most well-known academy for kids like me. Kids who were monsters. When I was little, being a monster hadn't mattered all that much. I thought that it was just a game, a secret that I was made to hide for fun. My mother had told me that much. "Don't tell anyone," she had said. "It is a game. If anybody finds out, you lose." After I had grown older, I started to lose interest in the game. It had become too childish for me, too boring. I had taken aside two of my friends on the playground and shown them my monster form. It wasn't easy to believe that I was a monster. I wasn't anything common or recongisable, like a werewolf or a kappa. I was a hybrid. Part vampire, part were-falcon. They had just been afraid at first, not really believing what I was telling them. What human would have? And then my mother found out about the incident. My two friends ended up being turned into vampires and sent off to another school for monsters. Somewhere in Luxembourg, as I'd heard. As for me, I was sent to live with my grandfather so that I could go to this monster academy, Youkai Academy. And now, here I was. Trudging through a graveyard full of mud in the pouring rain with a bike wheel lodged in the thick, wet earth. My frustration was rapidly growing. Why today? I wondered, at long last managing to tear the wheel from the grasp of the dirt. Instead, I ended up opting this time for carrying the bike over my head.

I arrived at the school ten minutes late for homeroom. Inside, the eyes of many Youkai in their human forms turned to watch me as I walked slowly into the room. My clothes were dripping wet, and the pair of black and silver wings on my back were streaming water onto the floor. I was too nervous and exhausted to really care about it much. The teacher, who appeared to be a catwoman, merely glanced up with a confused "nyaa?" and turned to her attendance sheet. I looked up at her, studying her for a minute. Though my Grandpa had told me for years that everyone here was a monster, actually seeing another monster besides those in my family was much different than I had expected. Her ears stuck up from beneath her orange-blonde hair and a short tail could be seen protruding from behind her. A frown creased her brow, her pen tapping against her lip as she scanned the list of students. "Excuse me," she said, turning to face me. "I don't think you're in this class..." I froze as I heard what she said. _Crud._I thought. First, my bike gets stuck in the mud. Next, I walk into school with my uniform dripping wet, and now, I walk into the wrong class. Late. Chuckling lightly, she stepped back from her desk and walked over to me. "I'll help you find your class. Don't worry about it."

Six minutes and a long walk later, I was finally in the right place. The door was marked for another homeroom, belonging to a teacher by the name "Kagome". The instant I walked into this class, I sensed a vast difference in the attitude of the students already there. Most of them sat at their desks, not talking, doing their own thing. At the front of the room, a teacher with maroon hair and glasses stood, watching as I entered the room. The catwoman teacher behind me seemed to grow antsy and simply laughed, a quivering, nervous laugh. "Okay, well, this is your homeroom, so...I'll be going back to mine, now!" She waved a frantic goodbye and dashed off, leaving me to wonder what she had been so nervous about as I watched her sprint down the hallway. "Huh," I mumbled, turning back towards the room. A pair of light brown eyes stared back at me, their intensity burning into me like an out of control fire. I jumped back, a quiet squeal slipping through my gritted teeth. "You're late, hm? That is b-a-d!" She spelled out each letter, waving her index finger left and right with each syllable. She didn't sound upset at all, oddly enough. I guessed she might be one of those teachers who acted angry, but never really was. She drew back from where she had been standing, just inches from my face. "It is the first day, though, isn't it? Try to be on time tomorrow." She said, returning to her post at the head of the room. As I picked a seat to sit in, making sure there would be nobody next to me, I felt a poke on my shoulder. A girl was staring at me, her eyes betraying a hint of timidness. "You're pretty tough, huh? Getting here so late and being jumped at by _her."_ Her eyes were a very pale blue, almost teal, and her hair matched them in color. It was tied up in braids that fell over each shoulder. A ribbon was tied into the tops of each braid, bright red in color. She smiled faintly. "Who is 'her'?" I asked. Realising how rude I must sound, I added, "I'm Sayuri, by the way." She laughing lightly. "I'm Shizuka. The teacher is Ririko-sensei, the math teacher. She is rumored to be an odd teacher by some of the older kids. I don't know why, though."  
"Oh," I said, nodding. So she was a weird teacher. That explained why she had popped up behind me so quickly after the catwoman left. Speaking of which... "Do you know what teacher here is a catwoman?" I asked, hoping to glean some information about her from this girl. "Oh! That's Nekonome-sensei. She is the older kids' teacher." I nodded, now feeling rather foolish for having walked into a class for kids who weren't even my age. "But isn't Ririko-sensei also for older children?" I asked, remembering that my grandfather had said that most teachers only knew teachers from their grade. "She teaches both grades." Shizuka explained.

By lunch, I was exhausted. Four classes had passed so far, and I was starving. I had not seen Shizuka since homeroom, but I still had five classes left. I sat at a small table with only three other children sitting at the opposite end, engrossed in a conversation of their own. I opened my bento box and eyed the food hungrily, snatching up a sweet moshi dango in my chopsticks before scarfing it down. Truth be told, I'm a rather fast eater. It didn't take me long to finish the four moshi dango's and the cold ganmo that the cafeteria offered. Two of the girls next to me gave me shocked, disgusted glares and turned their backs. My meal finished, I cleared my plate and wiped off the place where I had been sitting before I decided to go find Shizuka.


End file.
